Britain's bank slashes tech jobs

Royal Bank of Scotland - which is mostly owned by us - is slashing back office and technology jobs in its wealth management division.

The bank stressed it would try to avoid compulsory redundancies and said that less than a quarter of the previous 2,600 redundancies in its insurance business were compulsory.

The bank said: "We are working hard to rebuild RBS in order to repay taxpayers for their support and having to cut jobs is the most difficult part of this process. Today we are announcing a major investment in our processes and technology in our Wealth Management division to help us deliver better service and a wider choice for our clients. As a result of the changes we are restructuring our operations and this will unfortunately lead to job losses. We will do all we can to support our staff through this process and to keep compulsory redundancy to an absolute minimum. So far the job losses we've announced to date have resulted in fewer than one in four people being made compulsorily redundant".

But a spokesman for the Unite union said there was no reason why investment in new technology should mean job cuts.

The wealth management division employs 3,500 people in Edinburgh and London. Some 500 jobs are expected to go, according to Computerworld.

RBS brands include Coutts, NatWest, Citizens Financial Group in the US and insurance brands Churchill and Direct Line. ®